Total Recall

XXIX Strange Bedfellows

We found Rossy’s secretary in the chairman’s conference room, watching the early-evening news with the chairman’s secretary, the head of the marketing department-whom I’d met at Ajax’s hundred-fiftieth-birthday celebration-and five other people who were never introduced.

“We are demanding a boycott of all Ajax insurance by America ’s Jewish community,” Posner was proclaiming to the camera. “Preston Janoff insulted the whole Jewish community, he insulted the sacred memories of the dead, by his remarks in Springfield today.”

Beth Blacksin’s face replaced Posner’s on the screen. “Preston Janoff is the chairman of the Ajax Insurance group. He testified today against adoption of a bill that would require life-insurance companies to scan their books to see if they have any outstanding obligations to families of Holocaust victims.”

The camera switched to Janoff, standing in front of the legislative chamber in Springfield. He was tall, silver-haired, somber in a charcoal suit that suggested, but didn’t emphasize, mourning.

“We understand the pain of those who lost loved ones in the Holocaust, but we believe it would be an insult to the African-American, to the Native American, and to other communities who have suffered greatly in this country, to single out for special treatment people whose families were killed in Europe. And Ajax did not sell life insurance in Europe in the decades before the Second World War. For us to turn our files inside out on the off chance that one or two policies might come to light would place an extraordinary burden on our shareholders.”

One of the legislators rose to ask if it wasn’t true that Edelweiss Re of Switzerland was now the owner of Ajax. “Our committee wants to know about Edelweiss’s life-insurance policies.”

Janoff held up a copy of Amy Blount’s history, “One Hundred Fifty Years of Life and Still Going Strong.” “I believe this booklet will show the committee that Edelweiss was a small regional player in the life-insurance business in Switzerland during the war. The company has made copies available to all members of the legislature. Again, any involvement with consumers in Germany or eastern Europe would have been very small.”

A babble erupted as various members sprang to their microphones, but the program returned us to the Global studio, where Murray Ryerson, who occasionally did political commentary for Global, was speaking. “Later this afternoon, the House Insurance Committee voted eleven-to-two to table the proposed bill, which effectively kills it. Joseph Posner has been leafletting, telephoning, and picketing in an effort to start a nationwide boycott of all Ajax Insurance products in retaliation. It’s too early to tell if he’s succeeding, but we have heard that the Birnbaum family will continue to use Ajax for their workers’ compensation coverage, business reputedly worth sixty-three million dollars in premiums to Ajax this year. Alderman Louis Durham hailed Janoff’s speech and the vote with mixed reactions.”

We were treated to a close-up of Durham outside the Ajax building in his beautifully cut jacket. “Ideally, we want to see compensation for victims of African slavery in this country. Or at the very least in this state. But we appreciate Chairman Janoff’s sensitivity to the issue, to not letting Jews dominate a discussion of reparations in Illinois. We will take our fight for reparations for the victims of slavery directly to the legislature now, and we will fight until we win.”

When the evening news anchor, sitting next to Murray in the studio, came on the screen saying, “In other news, the Cubs lost their thirteenth straight today at Wrigley,” Janoff’s secretary switched off the set.

“This is wonderful news-Mr. Janoff will be terrifically pleased,” she said. “He hadn’t heard the vote when he and Mr. Rossy left Springfield. Chick, can you go on-line and find out who voted with us? I’ll call him in his car: he was going straight from Meigs to a dinner meeting.”

A fresh-faced young man obediently left the room.

“Was Mr. Rossy going to dinner with him?” I asked.

The rest of the room turned to stare at me as if I had dropped in from Pluto. Rossy’s secretary, an extremely glossy specimen with shiny black hair and a tailored navy dress, asked who I was and why I wanted to know. I introduced myself, explaining that Rossy had invited me to dinner in his home this evening. When Rossy’s secretary took me back to her own desk to check her calendar, the room started buzzing behind us: if I’d been invited to the Rossy home, I must be powerful; they needed to know who I was.

Rossy’s secretary tapped rapidly across the corridor on very high heels. Ralph and I trailed in her wake.

“Yes, Ms. Warshawski: I remember getting your number for Mr. Rossy yesterday morning, but he didn’t tell me he’d invited you to dinner-it’s not in my book. Shall I check with Mrs. Rossy for you? She is the decision-maker on his social calendar.”

Her hand was already poised over the phone. She hit a speed-dial button, talked briefly with Mrs. Rossy, and assured me that they were expecting me.

“Suzanne,” Ralph said as she started to pack up her desk. “Bertrand took a claims file away to study last week. We’re anxious to get it back-there’s an open investigation going on with it.”

Suzanne tapped into Rossy’s inner office and came back almost immediately with the Sommers file. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Devereux. He left a message in his dictation that I was to get this back to you, but he decided at the last minute to go to Springfield with Mr. Janoff; in the flurry of getting him down there, the file slipped my mind. Mr. Rossy wanted to make sure you knew how much he appreciated the work Connie Ingram did for him on this.”

Ralph grunted unenthusiastically. He didn’t want to admit doubts about his staff, but my finding Connie Ingram’s name in Fepple’s diary was clearly troubling him.

“I know Connie Ingram was helpful in tracking down the agent’s copy of the paper trail on this file,” I said. “Did Mr. Rossy ask her to call on Fepple-the agent-in person?”

Suzanne lifted her perfectly tweezed eyebrows, as if astonished that a peon would try to worm her boss’s secrets out of her. “You’d have to ask Mr. Rossy that. Perhaps you’ll have a chance to do so at dinner.”

“Really, Vic,” Ralph spluttered as we got back to his office. “What are you trying to suggest? That Connie Ingram was involved in killing an insurance agent? That Rossy somehow ordered her to do it? Get a grip on yourself.”

I thought of Connie Ingram’s round, earnest face and had to admit she didn’t seem likely either as a murderer or a murderer’s tool. “But I want to know how her name got into Fepple’s diary if she didn’t make the appointment or if she didn’t go down herself to his office and back-enter it,” I added stubbornly.

Ralph bared his teeth in a snarl. “I wouldn’t put it past you to do it. If you thought that would get you in the door.”

“That brings us back to where we started. Why don’t you let me thumb through the Sommers file so I can get out of here and leave you in peace.”

“Somehow peace is not what you ever leave me in, V I.”

There was just enough of a double edge to his tone that I hastily took the file from him and started thumbing through the contents. He stood over me while I carefully looked at each page. I couldn’t see anything odd, either in the client payment reports or the claim-payment record. Aaron Sommers had started paying weekly installments on May 13, 1971, and had paid the policy in full in 1986. Then a death claim, signed by the widow, and notarized, had been filed in September 1991 and duly paid a few days later. There were two copies of the canceled check-the one Connie had originally printed from the fiche, and one which Fepple had faxed to her from his files. They looked identical.

A copy of Rick Hoffman’s worksheet, where he’d typed up the figures for the weekly payments, was attached to a letter to Ajax alerting them to the sale. I had hoped the signature would be in the same ornate writing as the document I’d found in Fepple’s briefcase, but it was a very ordinary, nondescript hand.

Ralph inspected each document as I finished with it. “I guess it’s okay,” he said when we got to the end.

“Guess? Is there something wrong?”

He shook his head, but he still looked puzzled. “Everything’s here. Everything’s in order. It’s like ten thousand other claim folders I’ve inspected in the last twenty years. I don’t know why something doesn’t seem quite right. You run along: I’m going to stand over Denise while she copies every document, so that there are two witnesses to the contents.”

It was after six now. In the event that Posner was still out front, I wanted to get downstairs to see if I could pick up Radbuka’s trail. I was almost at the elevators when Ralph caught up with me.

“Vic-sorry. I was out of line earlier. But the coincidence of you being on the floor, the fiche missing, and knowing that you sometimes use, well, unorthodox methods-”

I made a wry face. “You’re right, Ralph. But I really swear, scout’s honor, that I was nowhere near your fiche.”

“I wish I knew what in hell was so important about this one lousy life-insurance case.” He slammed the flat of his hand against the elevator wall.

“The agent who sold it-Rick Hoffman-he’s been dead for seven years now. Would the company still have a record of his home address, his family, anything about him? He had a son-guy who’d be, I don’t know, close to sixty now-maybe he has papers that would shed some light on the situation.” It was a straw, but we didn’t have any more substantial building material right now.

Ralph pulled a small notebook from his breast pocket and scribbled a note. “I start the afternoon accusing you of theft and end it as your errand boy. I’ll see what I can find out. I wish you hadn’t called the cops, though. Now they’ll be around wanting to interrogate Connie. Who I refuse to believe killed the guy. She might have shot him-if she had a gun-if she’d agreed to go see him-and if he’d stepped across the line. But can you picture her scheming to make a murder look like suicide?”

“I’ve always been way too impulsive, Ralph, but-you can’t fling accusations at me without something more to go on than my unorthodox methods. Also, you need to face the fact that someone was in that drawer. Your and Ms. Bigelow’s solution is a Band-Aid: the team investigating Fepple’s murder should know that someone stole that microfiche. You should get them in here, regardless of the PR consequences. As for Connie Ingram, she should answer those questions, but you can show you’re a good guy by alerting Ajax ’s legal team. Make sure senior counsel is with her when she’s questioned. She seems to trust Ms. Bigelow; have Bigelow sit in on the interrogation. A lot will hinge on when her name was entered into Fepple’s computer. And whether she has an alibi for last Friday night.”

The elevator door pinged. As I got on, Ralph asked me casually where I’d been on Friday night.

“With friends who will vouch for me.”

“Your friends would, Vic,” Ralph said sourly.

“Cheer up.” I put a hand in between the doors to keep them from closing. “Connie Ingram’s mother will do the same for her. And Ralph? Trust your instinct on that Sommers file: if your sixth sense is telling you something isn’t quite right, try to figure it out, will you?”

The street was quiet by the time I reached the lobby. The bulk of homebound commuters were gone, making it pointless for Posner and Durham to parade their troops. A few extra cops lingered at the intersection, but except for flyers scattered along the curb, there was no sign of the mob that had been here when I arrived. I’d missed a chance to tail Radbuka home. Radbuka, whose father’s name hadn’t been Ulrich.

On my way to the garage I stopped in a doorway to call Max, partly to tell him I didn’t think Radbuka would be around tonight, partly to see if he’d be willing to show Don the papers about his search for the Radbuka family.

“This Streeter fellow is very good with the little one,” Max said. “It’s been a big help to have him here. I think we’ll ask him to stay on tonight, even if you know that this man calling himself Radbuka won’t be coming around.”

“You should keep Tim, no question: I can’t guarantee Radbuka won’t bother you, just that he’s attached himself to Joseph Posner for the moment. I saw him marching with Posner outside the Ajax building an hour ago-and I’m betting that’s making him feel accepted enough to keep him away from you overnight-but he’s a loose cannon; he could come shooting back.”

I told him about my meeting with Rhea Wiell. “She’s the one person who seems able to exercise some control over him, but for some reason she isn’t willing to. If you let Don look at your notes from your difficult trip to Europe after the war, he might persuade her that you really aren’t related to Paul Radbuka.”

When Max agreed, I left a message on Don’s cell-phone voice mail, telling him he should call Max.

It was six-thirty-not enough time for me to go home or to my office before dinner. Maybe I would try to drop in on Lotty, after all, before going to the Rossys’.

Six-thirty here, one-thirty in the morning in Rome, where Morrell would be just about landing. He’d spend tomorrow in Rome with the Humane Medicine team, fly to Islamabad on Thursday, and travel by land into Afghanistan. For a moment I felt bowed down by desolation: my fatigue, Max’s worries, Lotty’s turmoil-and Morrell, half a world away. I was too alone in this big city.

A homeless man selling copies of Streetwise danced over to me, hawking his paper. What he saw in my face made him change his pitch.

“Honey, whatever’s happening to you, it can’t be that bad. You got a roof over your head, right? You got three squares a day when you take the time to eat them? Even if your mama’s dead you know she loved you-so cheer up.”

“Ah, the kindness of strangers,” I said, fishing a single out of my jacket pocket.

“That’s right. Nothing kinder than strangers, nothing stranger than kindness. You heard it here first. You have a blessed evening, and keep that pretty smile coming.”

I won’t say he sent me on my way laughing with delight, but I did manage to whistle “Whenever I feel afraid” as I walked down the steps to the garage.

I took Lake Shore Drive north to Belmont, where I got off and started nosing around for a parking place. Lotty lived half a mile up the road, but street parking is at such a premium here that I grabbed the first space I saw. It turned out to be a lucky opening, only half a block from the Rossys’ front door.

I had kept deferring phoning Lotty on my way north: I wouldn’t do it from the street downtown because I didn’t want background noise interfering. I wouldn’t do it from the car because it’s dangerous to drive and dial. Now-I’d do it as soon as I’d shut my eyes for five minutes, emptied my mind, gotten the illusion of rest so I could be strong enough for whatever emotional fastballs Lotty pitched at me.

I pulled the lever so that the front seat was stretched almost horizontal. As I leaned back, I saw a limo pull up in front of Rossy’s building. I watched idly, wondering if it was Rossy, being dropped at home by Ajax ’s chairman, ecstatic over today’s favorable vote in Springfield. Janoff and Rossy would take a limo back from Meigs Field, sharing a drink and a merry laugh in the backseat. When no one got out after several minutes, I lost interest-the car was waiting to pick up someone from the building.

Rossy must be pretty ecstatic himself over today’s vote: Edelweiss Re had acquired Ajax to serve as their U.S. beachhead. They wouldn’t have been pleased at all if Illinois had voted that they had to scour their records hunting out policies sold to people who were murdered in Europe-a search like that would have cost a tidy bundle. Ajax must have tossed a fair amount of cash at the legislature to get the vote to go their way-but I suppose they figured that was cheaper than opening up their life-insurance book to public scrutiny.

Of course, it wasn’t likely that Ajax had sold many policies in central or eastern Europe in the 1930’s, unless they had a subsidiary that had done a lot of business there, which I didn’t think was the case. Insurance, like most business, had been regional before the Second World War. Still, Edelweiss itself might have had a Holocaust exposure. But as Ajax chairman Janoff had contended today, waving Amy Blount’s history at the legislature, Edelweiss had only been a small regional player before the war.

I wondered idly how they’d turned into the international giant they were today. Maybe they’d made out like bandits during the war itself-there must have been a lot of money to be made, insuring all the chemicals and optics and crap the Swiss produced for the German war effort. Not that it was relevant to the bill that the state was considering, which only dealt with life insurance, but people vote emotions, not facts. If someone showed that Edelweiss had gotten rich on the Third Reich’s war machine, the legislature would punish them by making them open their life-insurance files.

The limo driver opened his door and stood up. I blinked: it was a Chicago cop. Someone from the city on official business was up here. When the building door swung open, I sat up, looking to see if the mayor was coming out. The man who actually emerged made my jaw drop. I’d seen that bullet head and perfectly tailored navy jacket downtown only two hours ago. Alderman Louis “Bull” Durham. A lot of powerful people lived on this stretch of Lake Shore Drive, but I was betting it was Bertrand Rossy he’d been visiting.

While I was still staring at the front of Rossy’s building, wondering who was paying off whom, I got a second jolt: a figure in a bowler hat, tassels visible under his open coat, rose like a jack-in-the-box from the bushes and marched into the lobby. I got out of my car and moved down the street so I could see into the front door. Joseph Posner was gesticulating at the doorman. What on earth was going on?